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Thursday, 29 March 2007

Jean-Luc Picard. His name has gone down in legend as the captain of the U.S.S. Stargazer and two starships Enterprise. But the nine years of his life leading up to the inaugural mission of the U.S.S. EnterpriseTM to Farpoint Station have remained a mystery -- until now, as Picard's lost era is finally unearthed.

Following the loss of the Stargazer and the brutal court-martial that resulted, Picard no longer sees a future for himself in Starfleet. Turning to his other love, archaeology, he embarks on a quest to rediscover a buried age of ancient galactic history...and awakens a living survivor of that era: a striking, mysterious woman frozen in time since before the rise of Earth's dinosaurs. But this powerful immortal has a secret of cataclysmic proportions, and her plans will take Picard -- aided along the way by a brilliant but naive android, an insightful Betazoid, and an enigmatic El-Aurian -- to the heights of passion, the depths of betrayal, and the farthest reaches of explored space.

Bennett has also been discussing the novel at the Trek BBS. The novel deals with what Jean-Luc Picard was up to between commanding the Stargazer and the Enterprise-D. The story focusing on Picard's archaeological exploits in that period and some very ancient history in the Trekverse will apparently open with the Battle of Maxia, where the Stargazer was lost, and the first sixth of the novel will deal with that and the subsequent court martial. The story goes right up to Picard taking command of the Enterprise and explains how he became the man we know in TNG after his earlier adventures on Stargazer.

The Buried Age is out in July. Join the discussion and see what else the author has had to say over at the Trek BBS.

StarTrek.com has updated it's remastered comparison gallery with some images from "The Tholian Web", the images were first released about a week ago, these versions are larger widescreen ones.

The commentary with the comparisons explains some of the rational for the updates to the Tholian spinner design: "For the Remastered series, the Tholian ship has more structural detail, while retaining its basic shape.""The web spinners here appear sharper — almost like an arrowhead — giving them a slightly more malevolent look." More detail the better, but I'm really not convinced by the tapered point, the Tholian ships in Enterprise didn't do that and looked great, they could have updated the TOS design just the same.

Sean Tourangeau has released another image of Ellery O’Connell's mesh for his competition winning design for the Luna class USS Titan, William T. Riker's command as featured in Pocket Books'Star Trek: Titan novel series.

For more images and to join the discussion on the design visit the thread here.

Wednesday, 28 March 2007

Wil Wheaton (aka Wesley Crusher in TNG) has announced on his blog that he is writing a story for volume two of Tokyopop's Star Trek: The Manga books.

He did not give much away, as he noted the book hasn’t officially been announced yet, but he did reveal his tale will be a TOS story, seemingly ending speculation that Tokyopop’s second books would be a TNG collection for TNG 20th anniversary following the TOS book last year for the 40th anniversary.

Tokyopop acquired the Star Trek manga license in 2004 and had originally planed a TNG collection, however after some development time they decided to produce a TOS collection instead to celebrate the 40th anniversary last year. As TNG's 20th anniversary is this year it has widely been assumed the original delayed project might resurface as the second book out this year. Mr Wheaton's announcement would seem to imply the TNG projet remains on hold, though it's possible his story could be a crossover or the new book could have stories from different series.

Tuesday, 20 March 2007

Comics Continuum has put up IDWs releases for July. They include the final issue of "The Space Between", IDWs premier TNG series. And the third issue of "Klingons: Blood Will Tell", a TOS series told from the Klingons point of view.

The final part of The Space Between will apparently be tying together the previous five issues, which at first view would appear to one off stories. It will be interesting to see what they do to bring the stories together.

Blurb for The Space Between Issue 6:Written by David Tischman with art by Casey Malone.Jean-Luc Picard has always been an explorer, traveling the galaxy to seek out new life and new civilizations, but after seven years as captain of the Enterprise, he makes a startling discovery‹scientific information from the Enterprise's mission logs has been used to develop deadly weapons systems. Is Starfleet involved? And if so, how high does the conspiracy go? Ignoring direct orders from his superiors, Picard launches an all-out offensive on the secret base where these weapons are stored. Picard is not about to see his mission perverted for military use and strategic control. Five single-issue stories come together in the explosive, action-filled conclusion of "The Space Between."

Blurb for Blood Will Tell Issue 3Written by David and Scott Tipton with art by David MessinaThey say history is written by the victors: Blood Will Tell continues its look at the other side of the coin in the battle between Starfleet and the Klingons! Still struggling against the treaty with the Federation, the Klingon Empire looks for a new way to conquer: behind the scenes, one planet at a time. Can a single Klingon tame a world? Commander Krell aims to try!

As with all IDW's comics these issues will be available in a plethora of covers. Typically there are two covers easily available, one art, one a photomonatge and then additional covers less readily available. Below is one of the covers, by Joe Corroney for The Space Between 6:

Diamond Select Toys have annouced a new Jean-Luc Picard varient to be released later this year to celebrate TNG's 20th anniversary. This version will depict Picard in his early TNG uniform and comes complete with the captain's chair.

This release follows last year's TOS 40th anniversary figures which included both Kirk and Pike figures with captain's chairs.

At a recent toy fair a season one (without beard) Riker figure was also on display, no word yet on when, or as with some of the proposed exclusive figures if, this figure will be released but it would be a nice companion piece to the new Picard. Photos can be seen here.

Since DST picked up the licence they have being producing figures in waves, two characters at a time with numerous variants, often exclusive to certain shops. The variants typically include a later TNG uniform, a First Contact uniform and an All Good Things future version. For Picard there was also a Locutus figure.

The introduction of season one figures later on is something new, but might also be a good opportunity to get a Tasha Yar figure out, potentially as a two pack (another popular device of DST's) with the aforementioned Riker figure.

Comics Continuum has released art work for IDWs second TOS miniseries "Star Trek: Year Four", set in the forth year of the Kirk's first five year command of the Enterprise after the TV series finnished.

The six part series will be written by David Tischman, with artwork by Kelsey Shannon, Steve Conley and Leonard O'Grady and covers by Joe Corroney.

The article also included a cover by Kelsey Shannon released a few weeks ago. Since then IDW editor Dan Taylor has said this isn't actually assigned to any issue as yet.

The first issue of Star Trek: Year Four will be out in July, just overlapping with IDWs second series, and first TOS comics "Klingons: Blood Will Tell". Yet more TOS comics will be following in November with Alien Spotlight, a six part series of one off stories focusing on different aliens in the TOS or TNG setting.

Sean Touangeau, the designer of the USS Titan has released images of the lastest version of his mesh of the ship over at the Trek BBS.Tourangeau won the competition to design the Titan some time ago, the ship will make it's first offical appearence in December when it will star on the cover of the forth Titan novel, Sword of Damocles, by Geoffrey Thorne.For more images and to join the discussion on the design visit the thread here.

Star Trek.com have put up some images from the forthcoming remastered episode "The Tholian Web". I've put the images below, a video preview can also be found on the episode page here.

Looking very nice generally, though I am a little concerned about the updated design of the Tholian ships. I half expected them to be replaced with those used in Enterprise, and given the similar design do not think that would have been hugely inappropriate. The updates to details are a good thing, however the new versions seem to have tapered noses, quite a significant and really unnecessary change to the design, and not one, from these images at least, that even seems to be an improvement to me. Still I'm sure the overall effect will be an improvement.

Ta-da, this is my blog for Star Trek stuff, my thoughts on and findings of all things Star Trek old and new.

I'm hoping to collect news mostly on Star Trek licensed products which are hugely neglected by many other Trek sites or only to be found out about at very specifically focused sites. So I shall be getting as much info as I can about new books, comics and anything else in the world of Star Trek.

Hive Mind

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